Defence spending cut again

British defence spending will be more than £1.3 billion lower because of
decisions announced in the Autumn Statement, the Treasury confirmed.

The Ministry of Defence is facing £735 million of cuts in its core budget for 2013-15, part of a wider two-year programme of cuts in Whitehall departments’ spending.

Those cuts will raise £3.4 billion in all, meaning the MoD is absorbing around a fifth of all new departmental reductions.

Spending on military operations in Afghanistan this year is also being reduced by £650 million as British troop numbers fall and commanders prepare for withdrawal.

The MoD insisted that the cuts in its core budget would not affect the Armed Forces because the money would be found in a previously-unannounced financial reserve set aside by Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary.

The Treasury also said that the MoD would be given new freedom to carry over money unspent in earlier years.

Jim Murphy, the Labour shadow defence secretary, said that ministers had “questions to answer” over the defence budget and suggested that the cuts could hurt the Armed Forces.

“The Government has questions to answer, for example whether this resource will come from welfare or housing budgets and whether further capacity is being lost from the MoD to fund this cut,” he said.

“We must be told what ‘unallocated’ resource currently exists within the defence budget and why it is not being invested to cover gaps in capability or welfare provision.”

The UK National Defence Association described the cuts as “madness.”

The group said: “We thought Defence had been punished enough already but it looks like, having beaten Britain's Armed Forces to the ground, the Chancellor is now giving them a damn good kicking for good measure.”

The MoD insisted that the new cuts would not affect defence operations or personnel.

A spokesman said: “Due to the fact that the MoD, for the first time ever, has included annual “unallocated provisions” in its budget, and because of exceptional flexibilities agreed with the Treasury, these reductions can be absorbed without impacting on planned military manpower totals or the core defence equipment programme in 2013/14 and 2014/15.”

The announcement of further cuts came as the head of the army warned it could not take any further loss of troops without its ability to the protect the UK being damaged.

Army numbers will stand at just 82,000 when the remainder of previously announced cuts are completed by 2015.

General Sir Peter Wall, Chief of the General Staff, warned “all of those people are needed” and any further cuts would mean “foregoing capability”.

The military chief could not even guarantee the army could meet all future threats after the reductions already announced.

He said morale was being damaged by the cut backs which will see 9,500 redundancies split equally over the next two years.

He said the army was “approaching” the level where it could not take further cuts adding: “We need all of these people to do the right sort of job.”

Asked if on current cuts the army was still capable of meet risks or whether it was “close to the bone”, he said: “That is a difficult question to answer as we do not know what sort of risks are going to present themselves and do not know what stance the Government will take.”